1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of targeted marketing and, more particularly, to a method for analyzing bulk debit and credit card transaction data to provide interpretations of customer purchasing patterns for use by third parties, such as financial services marketers, in providing targeted offers and incentives to individual and groups of consumers most likely to positively respond to the offer.
2. Description of Related Art
The market place of today is characterized by fragmentation and a proliferation of consumer choices. In the past, three television networks were able to effectively reach 97 percent of the population with advertisements. However, these three networks alone can no longer effectively reach a broad audience because different retail formats and media channels now serve increasingly narrow audiences.
With the maturation of Internet shopping and the emergence of “on-demand” downloadable content, audience tastes are becoming further sub-divided. Savvy consumers do not hesitate to delete or disregard messages that they may deem irrelevant. In today's marketplace, it is more difficult—but even more critical—to deliver the right message to the right person through the right medium, at the right time.
Promotion industry sources estimate that the average American is bombarded with roughly 3,000 commercial appeals per day. However, most of these commercials are ignored. Consequently, a large portion of ad spending is actually wasted. The need for marketing and targeting intelligence, coupled with the ability to capture masses of consumer behaviors, such as mouse clicks or purchase transactions, has prompted behavioral targeting. Behaviorally-targeted on-line ads outperform contextually targeted ads by 20%. In fact, across all forms of direct media, response from behavioral targeting surpasses “mass-blast” marketing by as much as 20-to-1.
While other behavioral targeting systems rely on website cookies or collecting click-stream data, consumer purchases over the Internet in the year 2006 accounted for only 3.3% of U.S. retail sales according to Census Bureau estimates. The paper trails created by credit and debit card transactions thus provide an even better starting point from which to provide targeted marketing, because the cards capture a comprehensive view of what people actually purchase, on-line and elsewhere.
It is thus apparent that there is a need for a way to provide more accurately targeted marketing materials to consumers based on the actual purchasing patterns of these consumers.